House, Senate OK steroid bills

If you are thinking of using steroids, the Legislature has just issued this warning: Don't do it because it is not just your health that might be in jeopardy - it's your dreams of playing sports, too.

It is rare when the House and the Senate vote on similar bills on the same day, but Tuesday both chambers did that when each approved separate bills that, if they become law, would impose random steroids tests for high school athletes, the largest public school testing in the nation.

"I am thrilled," said Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van, and author of House Bill 346, which was approved unanimously and without debate Tuesday evening. "With this vote the members agree that this is a serious issue that is threatening some of your young people and that we must put an end to it."

"I think this will make high school athletics safer," Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, said earlier in the day of his Senate Bill 8, which he filed on behalf of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the leader of the Senate.

Dewhurst, a basketball player during his college days at the University of Arizona and a physical fitness enthusiast, was pleased with the 26-4 vote. Sens. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock and Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, voted for it.

"Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs have no place in society, much less in our schools," Dewhurst said in a statement. "Young athletes who want to improve their performance by using these substances are putting their lives at risk, and too often adults and peers are looking the other way."

Gov. Rick Perry's office said Tuesday he has not decided whether to sign or veto the steroids legislation if it reaches his desk. However, Flynn said he is confident that once his bill and Janek's bill are merged and voted by the entire Legislature, Perry will sign it.

"He knows I've been working on it and he is just as concerned about the health of your young people as the rest of us are," Flynn said.

The only thing left on both bills is to work on some differences, Flynn added.

Under the Senate bill, the state would pick up the cost for the testing, about $4 million a year. But under the House bill, the University Interscholastic League, the state body overseeing high school sports, would pay for the test and the money would come from the ticket sales of high school sports events.

Regardless who foots the bill, the program would test about 22,000 students, or 3 percent of the estimated 733,000 high school students in athletic programs. The Senate bill requires that all students agree before the season to be tested if selected in order to be eligible to play. Those who test positive would be ineligible to compete for a month for the first offense. Additional offenses could result in being permanently banned from any sports competition.

Flynn and Janek said the thought of being banned from any sport will discourage most students from taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Athletic directors in the Amarillo Independent School District and the Lubbock ISD could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

However, the Texas High School Coaches Association, the Texas Medical Association, and groups representing public high school districts and administrators testified in support of the Senate's bill.

LISD spokeswoman Nancy Sharp said that the district is not opposed to testing. But "we would have to review what comes out" when both bills merge in a conference committee before issuing an opinion.

This is a serious problem across the nation, and Lubbock is not the exception, Sharp said. That is why the district has been raising awareness among its students of what steroids can do to their bodies.

- The Associated Press contributed to this report. Enrique Rangel can be reached at enrique.rangel@morris.com.